The official student newspaper of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
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THE SPECTATOR THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-EAU CLAIRE’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1923 VOL. 92, NO. 23 SPRING 2014 Thursday, March 27 NEWS SPORTS CURRENTS OP / ED STUDENT LIFE PAGES 1-5 PAGES 7-9 PAGES 10-11 PAGES 13-15 PAGE 16 Like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter (@spectatornews) for up-to-date content! Daily updates, breaking news, multimedia www.spectatornews.com THIS WEEK ON LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD AT www.facebook.com/spectatornews Will you vote in the upcoming election on April 1? Exclusively this week on spectatornews.com NEWS: Senior philosophy student wins first-ever Duncan Award for research paper about analogies and theories SPORTS: Managing Editor Nick Erickson predicts the outcomes of all Sweet Sixteen games in his weekly column. UW-Eau Claire junior track athlete Thur- good Dennis is no stranger to accolades. Now, he can add National Athlete of the Year to his already impressive list. In record breaking fashion, the speedster collected his fifth and sixth career national championships on March 15 at the NCAA Divi- sion III meet in Lincoln, Neb., set two national records, and was named the 2014 NCAA Divi- sion III National Indoor Athlete of the Year by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. The heralded sprinter hailing from Green Bay Notre Dame High School broke the Division III’s all-time 60-meter dash record by winning his second consecutive title in the event. His time of 6.68 seconds gave him the record by .01 seconds. Then in the 200-meter dash, Dennis bolt- ed off the line to another Division III record of 21.27 seconds, again, .01 better than the previ- ous mark. But as always, the humble Dennis was quick to credit to his teammates and coaches, some- thing that is a common trait for the 21-year-old better known around campus as “Goodie.” “The national record is nice, but to me, the most im- portant things are getting those team points,” Dennis said. “If the Blugolds ain’t eat- ing, then I’m not either.” He also anchored his 4x400-meter relay team of Jimmy Paske, Cody Prince and Will LaJeunesse to a fifth-place finish, helping the Blugold men finish second to UW-La Crosse. It is the third straight indoor season Eau Claire has brought home a team trophy. In other words, ever since Dennis has been a part of the program. “It was very exciting to achieve a second place trophy, especially because I don’t think we performed all the way to our potential as a team,” Dennis said. “It was an outstanding ex- perience.” Dennis’ team-orientated persona first caught Director of Athletics Scott Kilgallon’s eye last spring, when he traveled to the national track championships at UW-La Crosse. Kilgallon said despite Dennis’ success, he is still the first one to praise his teammates and he has helped elevate their level of competition. “He’s a regular guy, working out with his DENNIS He’s just that (Thur)good Sprinter named National Athlete of the Year for indoor season, two more athletes earn honors Nick Erickson and Ellis Williams MANAGING EDITOR AND STAFF WRITER Greek life gives members a reason to achieve academically, ac- cording to members like senior Jake Wszelaki, Phi Gamma Delta mem- ber. “Yeah, you want to get good grades for yourself,” he said, “but knowing you’re also contributing to an organization that expects (you) to get good grades, it just gives you another goal to set.” Thirty members of the UW-Eau Claire Greek community were rec- ognized for outstanding academic performances at the third Greek Scholarship Dinner, held earlier this month. Fifteen men and 15 women from the six Greek chapters who held the top grade point averages from fall 2013 dined with the chapter presi- dents and high-ranking Eau Claire administrators. Sophomore Kayla Kallas, mem- ber of Delta Zeta and scholarship and education chair of the Panhellic Council, was one of the people re- sponsible for put- ting the ban- quet together. She said the banquet started as a way to rec- ognize Greek members ex- celling in the classroom and to show the campus community that academics is important to the sororities and fraternities. Wszelaki was one of 30 chosen to attend. The dinner serves as a call for members of the Greek communi- ty to “step up” in hopes of scoring an invitation to the banquet, he said. “I like that they’ve been doing (the dinner) the past couple years,” he said. “Any time you get acknowl- edged for your high standards is al- ways good.” Senior Katie Brier, member of DZ, also attended the banquet. She said being involved in a sorority has helped her academic work. DZ, like the other Greek chap- ters, includes practices to ensure members are keeping up with schoolwork and doing well in their classes. An academic chair sets out a plan of required study hours based on member GPA, Brier said. Half the hours are monitored by execu- tive board members. “I don’t think I’ve ever been to the library and haven’t seen anoth- er Greek member already studying there,” she said. “There’s a commu- nity there and you look forward to go Alex Zank OP/ED EDITOR A toast to good grades in Greek community Eau Claire fraternities, sororities recognize academic achievements with banquet SUBMITTED OUT OF THE BLOCKS: Junior sprinter Thurgood Dennis bolts out of the blocks in the finals of the 200-meter dash at the NCAA Division III national meet. Dennis won the national championship in both the 200 and 60-meter dashes with national record times. >> AWARD page 9 >> GREEK page 2 BRIER
Transcript
THE SPECTATORTHE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-EAU CLAIRE’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1923
VOL. 92, NO. 23 SPRING 2014Thursday, March 27
NEWS SPORTS CURRENTS OP / ED STUDENT LIFEPAGES 1-5 PAGES 7-9 PAGES 10-11 PAGES 13-15 PAGE 16
Like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter (@spectatornews) for up-to-date content!
Daily updates, breaking news, multimedia
www.spectatornews.comTHIS WEEK ON
LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD AT www.facebook.com/spectatornews
Will you vote in the upcoming election on April 1?
Exclusively this week on spectatornews.comNEWS: Senior philosophy student wins first-ever Duncan Award for research paper about analogies and theories
SPORTS: Managing Editor Nick Erickson predicts the outcomes of all Sweet Sixteen games in his weekly column.
UW-Eau Claire junior track athlete Thur-good Dennis is no stranger to accolades. Now, he can add National Athlete of the Year to his already impressive list.
In record breaking fashion, the speedster collected his fifth and sixth career national championships on March 15 at the NCAA Divi-sion III meet in Lincoln, Neb., set two national records, and was named the 2014 NCAA Divi-sion III National Indoor Athlete of the Year by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.
The heralded sprinter hailing from Green Bay Notre Dame High School broke the Division III’s all-time 60-meter dash record by winning his second consecutive title in the event. His time of 6.68 seconds gave him the record by .01 seconds.
Then in the 200-meter dash, Dennis bolt-ed off the line to another Division III record of 21.27 seconds, again, .01 better than the previ-ous mark.
But as always, the humble Dennis was quick to credit to his teammates and coaches, some-thing that is a common trait for the 21-year-old better known around campus as “Goodie.”
“The national record is nice, but to me, the most im-portant things are getting those team points,” Dennis said. “If the Blugolds ain’t eat-ing, then I’m not either.”
He also anchored his 4x400-meter relay team of Jimmy Paske, Cody Prince and Will LaJeunesse to a fifth-place finish, helping the Blugold men finish second to UW-La Crosse. It is the third
straight indoor season Eau Claire has brought home a team trophy. In other words, ever since Dennis has been a part of the program.
“It was very exciting to achieve a second place trophy, especially because I don’t think we performed all the way to our potential as a
team,” Dennis said. “It was an outstanding ex-perience.”
Dennis’ team-orientated persona first caught Director of Athletics Scott Kilgallon’s eye last spring, when he traveled to the national track championships at UW-La Crosse. Kilgallon said
despite Dennis’ success, he is still the first one to praise his teammates and he has helped elevate their level of competition.
“He’s a regular guy, working out with his
DENNIS
He’s just that (Thur)goodSprinter named National Athlete
of the Year for indoor season, two more athletes earn honorsNick Erickson and Ellis Williams
MANAGING EDITOR AND STAFF WRITER
Greek life gives members a reason to achieve academically, ac-cording to members like senior Jake Wszelaki, Phi Gamma Delta mem-ber.
“Yeah, you want to get good grades for yourself,” he said, “but knowing you’re also contributing to an organization that expects (you) to get good grades, it just gives you another goal to set.”
Thirty members of the UW-Eau Claire Greek community were rec-ognized for outstanding academic performances at the third Greek Scholarship Dinner, held earlier this month.
Fifteen men and 15 women from the six Greek chapters who held the top grade point averages from fall 2013 dined with the chapter presi-dents and high-ranking Eau Claire administrators.
Sophomore Kayla Kallas, mem-ber of Delta Zeta and scholarship
and education chair of the Panhellic Council, was one of the people re-sponsible for put-ting the ban-quet together.
She said the banquet started as a way to rec-ognize Greek members ex-celling in the classroom and to show the
campus community that academics is important to the sororities and fraternities.
Wszelaki was one of 30 chosen to attend. The dinner serves as a call for members of the Greek communi-ty to “step up” in hopes of scoring an invitation to the banquet, he said.
“I like that they’ve been doing (the dinner) the past couple years,” he said. “Any time you get acknowl-edged for your high standards is al-ways good.”
Senior Katie Brier, member of
DZ, also attended the banquet. She said being involved in a sorority has helped her academic work.
DZ, like the other Greek chap-ters, includes practices to ensure members are keeping up with schoolwork and doing well in their classes.
An academic chair sets out a plan of required study hours based on member GPA, Brier said. Half the hours are monitored by execu-tive board members.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been to the library and haven’t seen anoth-er Greek member already studying there,” she said. “There’s a commu-nity there and you look forward to go
Alex Zank OP/ED EDITOR
A toast to good grades in Greek communityEau Claire fraternities, sororities recognize academic achievements with banquet
SUBMITTED OUT OF THE BLOCKS: Junior sprinter Thurgood Dennis bolts out of the blocks in the finals of the 200-meter dash at the NCAA Division III national meet. Dennis won the national championship in both the 200 and 60-meter dashes with national record times.
>> AWARD page 9
>> GREEK page 2BRIER
UW-Eau Claire will be a little less fossil-fueled next spring after Student Senate voted Monday to in-stall solar panels on the roof of McIntyre Library.
Senate approved a plan to install $160,000 in photovoltaic solar panels on the roof of the library unopposed.
The panels catch sunlight from the south side of the library and pump clean electricity back into Eau Claire’s power grid. The library panels will mirror a set of sun suckers already installed on the roof of the Davies Center.
But it will take about 69 years before the panels generate enough power to equal their up-front price tag, Student Office of Sustainability director Emy Marier said.
That’s assuming the cost of energy continues to rise. If it doesn’t, the panels will take about 78 years to pay off, Mike Traynor, director of Eau Claire Facilities Management said in a presentation to Senate Monday.
But the panels probably won’t last half that long anyway.
Marier said the panels — not including wiring, housing and other infrastructure — will fizzle out in about 33 years, but are under a 25-year warranty.
Senator Christian Paese said while he supported the program, the cost is concerning.
“It’s hard to swallow spending this kind of mon-ey on something that has an average lifespan of 33 years and the payback period is 69 to 79 years,” sen-ator Paese said. “I think it’s cool that we’re making a statement, but it’s a $160,000 statement.”
The money to fund the project comes out of the SOS budget. SOS gets $200,000 in student fees to run projects on campus each year, which is the largest green fund allocation in the UW System.
Senator Zach Ahola said although solar panels are expensive, investing in renewable energy sets Eau Claire apart from other UW schools.
“I think it’s cool that we’re ... spending money on something that has pay back at all,” Ahola said. “This project meets all the criteria in the goals laid out for SOS.”
Senate will pass its approval to engineers at the Wisconsin State Department of Administration’s Divi-sion of Facilities Development who will work out the specifics of the project, Traynor said.
Once DFD drafts the plan, the university will put the project up for bid to contractors. DFD takes a $30,000 cut from the project in administration fees and engineering costs, which means contractors will have about $130,000 in materials and labor costs to complete the project.
The $160,000 in student money is basically the project’s budget, Marier said. And any leftover cash will be cycled back into the SOS budget, after Senate passed an amendment to the bill during Monday’s meeting.
Traynor said the project will go up for bid some-time this winter and construction should begin before next spring.
THE SPECTATOR
NEWSTHE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN - EAU CLAIRE STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1923
John EndersAbigail VidmarRachel SimonetJustin LangNate GuralskiVeronica Ware
Conor RaffertyKatherine O’Halloran
EDITORIAL STAFF
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The Spectator is a 100 percent student-run university publication published under the authority granted to the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.
CORRECTION POLICY:While The Spectator continually strives for excellence and accuracy, we resign the fact that we will occasion-ally make errors. When these errors are made, The Spectator will take responsibility for correcting the error and will maintain a high level of transparency to be sure all parties are confident that the incorrect information does not spread.
CORRECTIONS:
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CONTACT THE SPECTATOR STAFF:ADDRESS: Hibbard Hall 104, Eau Claire, WI 54701EDITORIAL PHONE: 715-836-4416ADVERTISING PHONE: 715-836-4366BUSINESS PHONE: 715-836-5618FAX: 715-836-3829EMAIL: [email protected] ADVISER: Mike Dorsher - 715-836-5729
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Thursday, March 27NEWS EDITORS: Emily Albrent and Katie Bast
Nate BeckCOPY EDITOR
Ride the sunlight
Senate approve $160,000 toward set of solar panels
On Saturday night, Zorn Arena will transform its basketball court into a professional-grade Ultimate Fight Championship setting for the The Fight League, put on by Lanista Entertain-ment with the help of UW-Eau Claire’s Mixed Martial Arts Club.
The event starts at 7:30 p.m. Satur-day with doors opening at Zorn Arena at 6 p.m. To hype up the competition and make it as authentic as possible, there will be official weigh-ins at 7 p.m. Friday in Schofield Auditorium for the 30 fighters competing from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois.
Hunter Promer, vice president of the MMA Club, said the goal of the event is to get people interested in mixed martial arts fighting and provide a similar experience to the fans of the sport at its level already.
“I’m optimistic, but I’m hoping people will be shocked at how well put together it is,” Promer said. “It will be hopefully very similar to the UFC, so if they like good action, it’ll be entertain-ing. No matter what.”
Of the 30 competitors who will en-ter the eight-sided cage Saturday night, three are Eau Claire students and members of the MMA Club: Ryan Wil-
liams, Stephanie LaPointe and Brock Reynolds. Blugold head wrestling coach Steve Wozniak will also compete.
After an unsuccessful attempt to host a fight night last fall, Promer and others in the MMA Club worked with Jason Jones of Lanista Entertainment to bring the event to a college campus.
LaPointe said having the event in Eau Claire, especially on campus, is something special for her, Williams and Reynolds to showcase their talents in front of friends and family members.
“That’s a once in a lifetime oppor-tunity,” LaPointe said. “It’s a really unique situation to have your first fight here.”
Indeed, LaPointe and Williams will be competing in their first ever MMA-style event. The two had some expe-rience in competitive fighting before. LaPointe wrestled in high school and Williams has boxing experience.
The MMA Club is an open invitation to anyone on campus looking to stay physically active or learn self-defense. But getting ready for a full-fledged cage match is an entirely different animal.
Williams said the three of them have upped the workout load expo-nentially since returning from winter break, waking up at 6 a.m. almost daily and work out two to three times a day.
Nick EricksonMANAGING EDITOR
MMA competition to feature three UW-Eau Claire students
Saturday night fight
>> FIGHT page 4
GREEK/ Community values, recognizes high academic achievements ing to it.”
There are also rewards given based on GPA. In fact, to be eligible to become a member of DZ, a 2.7 GPA is required. To hold executive office, the requirement is 2.75. DZ members also need to earn academ-ic points each semes-ter, which are earned through actions like studying and visiting professors during of-fice hours.
“We strive to be leaders with our ac-ademics, it’s some-thing our sorority was founded on,” she said.
Another incentive for solid school performance is an opportunity to get a scholarship from their fraternity or sorority. For example, Wszelaki said
members of Fiji can get a $500 schol-arship from the fraternity if they hit a 3.2 GPA their first year.
Another purpose of the dinner, is to spread awareness of the value the Greek community puts on academics, Brier said.
“There is a stereotype of who Greeks are. I think a lot of times there’s this image there isn’t a focus on academ-ics,” she said. “Every single Greek chapter has (an academic policy) that has built up to what they val-
ue. It really points out to the true im-age of what we’re about.”
“There is a stereo-type of who Greeks are. I think a lot
Every year since her death in 1998, the Ann Devroy Memorial Forum – named after the UW-Eau Claire graduate – honors one out-standing journalism student with a three-week unpaid internship at the Washington Post and a paid summer internship at a Wisconsin daily newspaper.
In addition, the Forum hosts a prominent journalist to speak with the Eau Claire campus and commu-nity on their areas of expertise.
This year, that speaker is Al Kamen, a friend and colleague of Devroy’s during her time at the Washington Post. Kamen is a re-porter and currently writes the “In the Loop” column on politics for the Post.
When Michael Dorsher, an as-sociate professor of communication and journalism at Eau Claire, asked the 2013 Devroy Fellow Rachel Minske who she thought would be a good fit for the 2014 Devroy Forum, she turned to Devroy’s husband Mark Matthews, whom she met
while in Washington, D.C.“It’s tough because everyone
at the Post, for the most part, is fa-miliar with the Devroy Forum itself and they recognize Ann Devroy’s name because she is such a legend, but there’s really not too many peo-ple left who really worked closely with her,” Minske said.
Matthews suggested Al Kamen, a reporter and columnist for the Washington Post, and so did Minske.
“His desk was sitting right next to hers, and so it was kind of con-stant conversation between the two of them,” she said. “He knows her really well, and he speaks kindly upon her.”
Because he is well-informed about the political sphere in Wash-ington, D.C., Minske said she thinks there will be a lot to learn from him, and the conversation from the audi-ence will be interesting.
However, she said she was also happy to see they had been able to find someone who knew Devroy so well.
“Every Devroy speaker as far as I know has some sort of relationship
with Ann,” Minske said. “It’s great that we can continue this for at least one more year, and who knows how much longer we’ll be able to.”
Dorsher was involved in the selection process of the Devroy Forum speak-er and said he wanted some-one who had worked closely with Devroy, but Kamen ap-pealed to him because he had a few other qual-ities to offer.
“He is an excellent reporter with a nation-al reputation and has done great, investigative work,” he said. “But what sets him apart is that, since he writes a column, he has been pulled into the digital age and he has been more active in using Twitter and blog posts.”
Dorsher also said Kamen will stay an extra day in Eau Claire to speak to a journalism class and have lunch with 10 sophomore
students, something many Devroy speakers aren’t able to do.
Kamen said he was very excited to give this speech and get a chance to talk about his work and his good friend, because he doesn’t often give speeches or go on television. While there are exceptions to this, they are few and far between. Ann Devroy is one of those exceptions.
“I was delighted to have been asked,” he said. “I didn’t question it.”
He said he has not written a formal speech yet, but knows he will talk about what made Devroy an exceptional reporter.
“Reporters don’t always get their question answered, they get the answer the government official wants to give them,” Kamen said. “She would get her questions an-swered.”
He said he will also touch on his work for the Washington Post and the politics that go along with his insider column to the White House, but would prefer more time for the question and answer session to hear what people want to know.
The Ann Devroy Memorial Forum will take place at 7 p.m.
on April 17 in Schofield
NEWS3Thursday, March 27
COMMUNITY CALENDAR
NOTABLE EVENTS HAPPENING BOTH ON AND OFF CAMPUS
THURSDAY, MARCH 27
FRIDAY, MARCH 28
SATURDAY, MARCH 29
SUNDAY, MARCH 30
MONDAY, MARCH 31
TUESDAY, APRIL 1
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2
• 8 a.m. — Zumba, Dragonfly Dance & Wellness Studio
• 7:30 p.m. — Mixed martial arts event: The Fight League, Zorn Arena
• 8 p.m. — Vic and Gab + Little Radar, The Cabin
• 4 - 5:30 p.m. — Chancellor’s Centennial History Series: Alumni Oral History Presentation, Davies Center
• 6:30 p.m. — Audacious and The Innocent Men, Schofield Auditorium
• 7 p.m. — Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Chippewa Valley Theatre Guild
• 8 p.m. — Hounds Before Lions, The Cabin• 9 p.m. — Tear the Face Off Winter, House of Rock
NEWS EDITORS: Emily Albrent and Katie Bast
• 7:30 p.m. — Guest Artist Recital: Gail Robertson, euphonium, Haas Fine Arts Center
• 7:45 - 9:15 p.m. — Adult Open Hockey, Hobbs Ice Center
Four recent Blugold graduates spoke about their transition from student life into the workforce to kick off UW-Eau Claire’s College of Business 2014 Hot Topics: Mar-keting Forum Series Tuesday in Schneider Hall.
This is the college’s third year hosting the event. The Department of Management and Marketing, the Center of Sales and Sales Manage-ment and the Eau Claire Chapter of Pi Sigma Epsilon all sponsored the forum.
Bob Erffmeyer and Jerry Koll-ross, director and assistant direc-tor of the Center of Sales and Sales Management helped plan the event and contact the speakers. Erffmeyer said he hopes the experience serves as a minor wake up call for the stu-dents who attended.
Ellie Fox of GrayBaR, Aaron Severson of Hormel and Kyle Thor-pe of Northwestern Mutual, all 2013 graduates, along with Emma Carl-
son of TEKsystems who graduat-ed in 2012, were the four featured guests and answered questions about their journey this far.
One student who took away useful information was junior mar-keting major Matt Becker. He said while a lot of the discussion dealt with life after graduation, there were some things he could still ap-ply to the year and a half he has left in Eau Claire.
“One thing they wished they would have done was make more cold calls, or making calls to new clients,” Becker, a member of PSE’s executive board, said. “If they would have done more of that in college, that would have prepared them bet-ter for their job experience in the real world.”
He said in his professional mar-keting class, taught by Kollross, stu-dents are expected to do one cold call to prepare for a role-playing portion of the course. While encouraged to make more after, it isn’t mandatory. After listening to the forum speakers,
Steve Fruehauf SPORTS EDITOR
Business forum offers different perspective
Recent Blugold graduates return, give students career advice
KATIE BAST / The Spectator REAL WORLD: Kyle Thorpe, Ellie Fox, Aaron Severson and Emma Carl-son, at the table, spoke to UW-Eau Claire students Tuesday about their experiences in the work force.>> FORUM page 4
Becker said this is something he plans to focus more on when the time comes.
Fellow junior marketing major Tim Bortner said he enjoyed the event because the featured speak-ers were recent Blugold graduates. He said he assumes that’s why the 150-person lecture hall was com-pletely full, forcing some to stand.
“That was the best idea (Erff-meyer and Kollross) ever had, by far. I think that’s why it was a packed house, because everyone could relate to them,” Bortner, PSE’s president and sales team member, said. “That’s where we are all going to be in a year. I thought it was extremely effective.”
He said a major portion of dis-cussion dealt with the interview process, something that especially resonated with him. The speakers talked about being up front and
asking for the position applicants are striving for near the end of the interview, Bortner said, especially in marketing and sales.
This tactic forces employers to tell interviewees whether they are a proper fit for their company or not. Rather than the interview being purely about someone’s credentials, it now encompasses their experi-ence, their interviewing ability and what they need to work on.
Bortner, who is interning with Hormel this summer, said he hopes to continue with the company after graduation. He said after attending this forum, he feels more comfort-able about his chances.
One more forum, about mar-keting analytics, will take place on campus before the spring semester is over as part of the 2014 Hot Top-ics: Forum Series. Anyone interest-ed in attending should reference the college of business webpage or their facebook page.
4NEWS EDITORS: Emily Albrent and Katie Bast Thursday, March 27
NEWS
Eleven finalists from UW-Eau Claire’s chapter of DECA, an interna-tional business and service organiza-tion, will head to Washington, D.C. on April 23 to compete in the Internation-al Career Development Conference.
DECA members competed in a state competition in Madison the weekend of March 6, and all of the 19 members qualified for the internation-al conference, placing in the top eleven of their categories, including five that placed in the top three.
Aaron Polzin, a senior and chap-ter president of DECA, was one of those five, placing first in the Retail Management business simulation cat-egory.
Every student is placed in their own category and scores are calculat-ed in the categories and overall, Polz-in said. The competition consists of a 100-question multiple choice quiz fol-lowed by two role-plays, where he said students have a half hour to present a scenario within their category to the judges.
“It’s definitely a lot of thinking. You’ve got to come up with a plan and coming up with a plan in 30 minutes is kind of tough,” he said.
Polzin said he has been a mem-ber of DECA since his freshman year of high school and in the seven years he’s been involved has gone to nation-als three times. This year marks his
fourth, and he said he has high expec-tations for himself.
“I want to take first place,” he said. “I was there a couple years ago and placed top ten, so I think my next goal is just take first.”
Marissa Leners, sophomore and first-year DECA member, also placed in top three.
While Leners said she was sur-prised at how well she did, she real-ized the executive board did a good job of preparing DECA members for the role-play scenarios, and she said being at the conference was a cool ex-perience for her.
“It was a lot of fun, and it was cool because it was all independent,” she said. “You were in charge of making it to your event, and no one was there watching to make sure you did it. It felt more professional that way.”
Emily Elsner Twesme has been the faculty adviser for DECA for the last three years. She said she was very impressed with how well the students performed because there are quite a few freshmen and sophomores on the team this year.
“I was just hoping that maybe people would do well,” Elsner Twesme said. “I didn’t want to put any kind of pressure or expectation, especially being that some of those students ha-ven’t even taken business classes yet.”
The students involved this year are very self-sufficient, she said, and she is confident in their ability as they prepare for the nationals conference
in April.“They’re going to do fantastic, and
either way they’re such great repre-sentations of our students and our college, and so that in and of itself I know they’re going to do well,” Elsner Twesme said.
Competition aside, she said she
thinks the organization is a good way to prepare students for the real world, especially the conferences they attend because they put them in life-like sit-uations.
“I think it’s just about one of the greatest experiences that anybody can get in college,” she said. “Mostly be-
cause you are handed a piece of paper and … you have to just think on your feet, and that’s so much of what life in the real world is like.”
DECA students prepare to head to nationalsPlanning for the future
FORUM/ Alumni pro-vide advice to students
LaPointe said while the work has been rigorous, stressful and exhaust-ing, it’s totally worth it to get into the best shape she’s ever been.
“Nobody else is getting in that cage, so I’m just going to enjoy it and take it in,” LaPointe said. “I want to work hard, I don’t want it to be easy.”
Win or lose, Williams said the big goal of the night is to give fans a show. But of course, a victory would be nice.
“Just showing all the aspects of what I’ve been working on and just entertaining, that’s the biggest part,” Williams said. “But I really do want to get that win after working so hard.”
Tickets for the event are on sale at the Service Center and the Zorn Arena door Saturday night. Weigh-ins Friday are free of charge.
SUBMITTED GET IN THE CAGE: Ryan Williams, Stephanie LaPointe and Brock Reynolds, above, will all compete Saturday at the Fight League, put on by Lanista Entertainment and the UW-Eau Claire Mixed Martial Arts Club.
KATY MACEK / The Spectator CAPITAL BOUND: Eleven of the 19 DECA members qualified to attend the International Career Development Conference competition in Washington, D.C. this April.
5Thursday, March 27
COMMUNITY NEWSNEWS EDITORS: Emily Albrent and Katie Bast
This year marks the 9th annual lambing event at Govin’s Meats and Berries Farm just outside of Eau Claire.
The event runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., March 29 and 30, and April 5 and 6, and is meant to bring in everyone from families to college students, Julie Govin, owner of the farm said.
For $7, the public can see new-born lambs and play with alpacas, dogs and baby pigs. The event is filled with squealing pigs, bleating sheep and kids running after chick-ens and roosters.
“We wanted to educate the pub-lic about farming and different ani-mals,” Govin said. “People are very removed from farming now.”
More than 50 people crowded into Govin’s barn. Renee Barr and her daughters, Molly Barr and Kate Barr, have been to the lambing event
before and returned again this year. “It’s fun to be able to come out,
to be able to hold them and see a live birth,” Renee Barr said. “Something is available for people to see no mat-ter what.”
The farm also features events like strawberry picking and corn mazes. At first, another owner, John Govin said this event started out as a way to bring in profit, but has grown into an educational experi-ence. He said he wants people to see what he saw growing up on a farm.
One of the hardest parts about putting on the event is making sure the babies are born at the right time so people can see a birth, Julie Govin said.
“Some of the animals take a year to be born,” she said. “Alpacas gesta-tion is a year, and as of right now we don’t have any alpaca (babies). It’s a timing issue, you have to know the gestation of everything.”
John Govin said it’s hard to run the event when people start parking.
“Lambing season is a very busy season of the year because of the births and to double the work load by opening up to the public is the biggest challenge of all,” he said.
Julie Govin said the event is for everyone and encourages people to take time to come to the farm be-cause everyone loves baby animals. She said her favorite part of the event is seeing all the smiling faces on adults and children.
“It’s both educational and enter-taining, this is the most fun event we do,” Julie Govin said.
Julie and John Govin said they want to see more college students. Julie Govin said they see a lot more students during the fall when they have corn mazes, but wish more stu-dents would take advantage of the lambing.
“Groups of friends go to the zoo, why not come to the farm?” John Go-vin said.
John Govin said he wants people to see beyond lambing.
“I think it’s important that con-sumers understand agriculture and understand that farmers really have the best interest with animals in mind as we raise them,” John Govin said.
He said the babies are fun
to see and hold, but families can come and reconnect with agriculture.
Lambing back in seasonFor a short time, live births open to the public
Emily Albrent NEWS EDITOR
EMILY ALBRENT / The Spectator BAHHHH: People of all ages can come to Govin’s Meats and Berries Farm to hold baby lambs and catch a glimpse of newborns.
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SPORTS7SPORTS EDITOR: Steve Fruehauf Thursday, March 27
A hall of fame induction is an accomplishment only a select few people experience in their lifetime; and even fewer are fortunate enough to call multiple halls of fame home.
Former UW-Eau Claire wrestling head coach Don Parker was inducted into the NWCA Division III Wrestling Coaches’ Association 2014 Hall of Fame on March 13. Parker said his induction was meaningful because his peers nominated him.
“I’ve been inducted into a number of hall of fa-mes and each one has their own special meaning,” Parker said.
Parker is a member of seven halls of fame. He was inducted into the North High School Hall of Fame in 1986, the NCAA Division II Hall of Fame in 2000, the Iowa Glen Brand Hall of Fame in 2007, the National Wrestling Hall of Fame-Wisconsin Chap-ter in 2010 and the UW-Eau Claire Hall of Fame in 2013.
He is also a member of the 1964 Northern Iowa football team that was inducted into the Panthers’ Hall of Fame.
Director of Athletics Scott Kilgallon met Parker in 2004, while Parker was the Blugolds’ head coach. Kilgallon said Parker’s passion for his job and for his wrestlers was apparent from the forefront.
“I would take a lot of trips down to the wrestling room to watch practices and you could see and feel the intensity level in how he conditioned them and got them ready for competition,” Kilgallon said.
Parker's passion for wrestling started in his hometown of Hawkeye, Iowa. He was a state cham-pion in high school and went on to win two NCAA Division II titles as a wrestler.
Before arriving to Eau Claire, Parker held stints with several colleges and high schools as a head coach. In 1977 he took the job and remained at the university for 32 years.
During Parker’s 21st season here, he was a vic-tim of a tragic accident. Parker fell from a tree stand after his seat collapsed. The fall left him an incom-plete quadriplegic and he was forced to coach his fi-nal eleven seasons in a wheelchair.
Kilgallon said anyone who has gone through what Parker did has every reason to be completely negative and mad at the world, but instead he is one of the most positive people he has ever met.
“He deals with the bad cards that were delivered to him and he continued to go on to do what he loves in developing young people and coaching them as
wrestlers,” Kilgallon said. Parker said he credits the sport of wrestling,
his rehab and his family for helping him maintain his positive attitude on life. He said the accident was something that just happens and he had to go on in life because for those who do not, life becomes miserable.
Parker still lives in Eau Claire with his wife Carol. The two have three daughters and four grand-children. Parker said he considers himself blessed. He still has his mind and is fairly physical with his upper body, and he can also drive a vehicle.
Kilgallon said Parker left a legacy at Eau Claire and Parker has been one of his favorite coaches during his time here.
“In all sports, coaches need to strive to make strong connections with their student-athletes,” Kilgallon said. “That is something Coach Parker exemplified.”
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Ellis Williams STAFF WRITER
Forever enshrinedFormer Blugold wrestling coach inducted into another hall of fame
The UW-Eau Claire men’s and women’s tennis teams went 5-0 at the spring break tournament in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina last week.
Seniors Joe Meier and Ryan Vande Linde were dominant once again in doubles play for the men’s team, not dropping a single match. On the women’s side, the number one doubles pair senior Katie Gillman and junior Maddie Johnson also went 5-0 in doubles play.
Head coach Tom Gillman had nothing but positive things to say about his teams’ perfor-mances over spring break.
“I think both our men’s and women’s teams were both very passionate about their matches this past week,” Gillman said. “They came out with positive attitudes and rallied together all week.”
The men’s team was strong in both dou-bles and singles competition, only losing a total of six individual matches over the week and sweeping two matches as a team. Much was the same for the women’s team. Playing their first match since fall, they only dropped five individual matches throughout the entire week.
Doubles stood out once again for the men’s team thanks to strong perfor-mances from Vande Linde and Meier, Kyle Hoffman and Josh Chuba and Na-than Tretsven and Luke Zwiener.
Meier attributes the success over spring break to the tough schedule over pre-vious weeks.
“I think the past few weekends of tough competition did a great job preparing us for our spring break matches and what was to come,” Meier said.
The women’s team was especially strong in doubles as well, thanks to play from Katie Gillman and Johnson at No. 1 doubles, and junior Maddie Rossebo and senior Mary Fras-setto at No. 2 doubles. These duos didn’t drop
a match the entire week.Despite their time away from competi-
tion, the women’s team was able to take a lot in on the trip and get back into the swing of things.
“We are constantly fo-cusing on making movement, consistency and our mental game a priority,” Frassetto said. “The team continued to work on those aspects but for the rest of the spring season improvements can still be made in those areas.”
The Blugold men faced Bloomsburg College, Messi-ah College and Millersville College, all of Pennsylvania. They also played Springfield College (Mass.) and Wooster College (Ohio) during the trip.
The women’s team played every one of those teams as well with the exception of Springfield College. Instead, they played the University of South Dakota-Sioux Falls.
However, the trip went beyond all of the matches, practices and work. The Blugolds took in time together and used it to get closer during the week.
“The best part about spring break was definitely bonding with our team,” Vande Linde said. “We're already a close-knit team, but I think this whole trip strengthened our chemistry immensely.”
Although the Blugolds level of play was strong throughout the week, Gillman said he still sees some areas for improvement.
“Shot selection can always get better, and is a huge factor in match play,” he said. “Searching for better shots is something we always work on, along keep working on how we can move better on the court as well.”
The Blugold women will be in action on April 4 at St. Scholastica College (Minn.). The men’s team will travel Saturday to face Au-gustana College in Madison.
Spring break dominanceBoth tennis teams undefeated in South Carolina
ELLIS WILLIAMS / The Spectator DESERVED HONOR: A plaque honoring former UW-Eau Claire wrestling coach Don Parker is hung in the McPhee Strength and Performance Center.
SPORTSSPORTS EDITOR: Steve Fruehauf Thursday, March 27 8
Joe MeierNo. 2 Singles / No. 1 Doubles
Men’s Tennis
SeniorHutchinson (Minn.)
Hutchinson High School
Getting to know Meier:
Favorite thing about Eau Claire: The faculty, campus and workout facilities
Favorite restaurant in Eau Claire: HuHot
Dream job: To train and work with athletes and people to
achieve their fitness and health goals
Favorite movie: Harry Potter series
Favorite book: “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollen
Helping the Blugolds to a 5-0 record on spring break in Hilton Head Island, S.C., Meier was un-defeated for the week. He went 4-0 in No. 2 sin-gles play while he also led in a match that went unfinished on Tuesday. At No. 1 doubles, he and
partner Ryan Vande Linde finished 5-0.
GRAPHIC BY KARL ENGHOFER / The Spectator
Last week, the UW-Eau Claire softball team headed south to Tuc-son, Ariz. for a 10-day tournament against national competition.
The Blugolds flew into Tucson on Saturday, and by the next day, the team was playing Augsburg College (Minn.) and Marian University. Eau Claire won against Augsburg, 18-10, and also against Marian, 7-0.
Over the next four days, the Blugolds beat several teams, includ-ing Crown College (Minn.), Denison (Ohio), Grinnell College (Iowa), Gus-tavus Adolphus (Minn.) and Whittier (Calif.). The Blugolds also faced La Verne (Calif.), Chapman (Calif.), and Clare-mont-Mudd-Scripts (Calif.), each handing Eau Claire a loss.
“We beat teams we should’ve beaten, but we didn’t beat teams that we need to beat,” head coach Leslie Huntington said. “For us to get to where we want to be, we have got to beat those kinds of teams.”
Junior outfielder Amanda Fisch-er said it was a great week.
“We had some hiccups, which we wish we didn’t have, but you always learn from those,” Fischer said.
Huntington said her coaches did a good job mentally and physically preparing everyone. Physically, the Blugolds conditioned and practiced Monday through Friday and in-creased their water consumption in the weeks before their trip.
As for being mentally prepared for the games, ju-nior pitcher Lau-ra Raflik said her and her teammates
would do what’s called a “mental minute.”
“It’s a lesson to get us to be as ag-gressive as we can be, and to push through those 10 games and to bounce back from those games,” Raf-lik said.
H u n t i n g t o n also said since her team practices at 5:30 a.m. Monday through Friday, it wasn’t difficult to get her team up and ready to play the early games throughout the week.
Since the Blugolds are back in Eau Claire, the team has to get creative with their practices, since the snow is still keeping them indoors. This week, the team is working on their short game, covering bunt situations d e f e n s i v e l y , along with work-ing on their of-fense. At this
time of year, it’s about the only thing they can do at an indoor practice, Huntington said.
“If there’s any kind of dirt on our practice field, even if it’s 20 degrees, we’re going to probably go out and pitch, even if it’s for a half hour,” Huntington said. “We just really have to play it by ear every day at this point.”
Next weekend, the Blugolds will travel to Iowa to play six games Friday through Sunday. After this weekend, the Blugolds will not only have a chance of outdoor practices, but will face a tough WIAC confer-ence, in hopes for yet another confer-ence championship.
Meghan Hosely STAFF WRITER
Even with overall success, there is still room for improvement
Blugolds softball goes 7-3 in Arizona
HUNTINGTON
FISCHER
“We beat teams we should’ve beaten, but we didn’t beat teams that we need
SPORTS9SPORTS EDITOR: Steve Fruehauf Thursday, March 27
Marathon training continues to pick up steam as race day creeps ever closer. Running buddy Johnny and I now have two more long runs tucked under our orange and gray fuel belt.
Before leaving town for spring break Johnny and I laced up our Asics for a 16-mile trek.
Finding a route that we’re not sick of in Eau Claire is becoming more difficult, especially when it’s 16 miles long.
We decided to follow a route we’ve come very comfortable with: through the student ghetto, up 1st Street to-ward the north crossing. It’s a nice course that leads us through an old-er, less hectic part of town. Well most days it’s less hectic anyway, but on this particular day one townie was not feeling very calm; about three miles into the run we passed by an el-derly lady loudly scolding the turkeys that had taken over her front yard.
“Scat… Scat!” she screamed at them in her robe. It would have been funny if it stopped there, but the snowballs she proceeded to throw at the birds made the event much more humorous and memorable.
In attempt to mix up the familiar we decided to change the middle part of the route, which didn’t turn out so well.
Somewhere around North High School we missed a turn and found ourselves very lost. When we paused to get our bearings a man slowed down and asked us for directions so apparently we didn’t look as puzzled as we felt.
Since we don’t run with a phone and neither of us are very familiar with much more of Eau Claire than the campus area we truly were lost which led me to think about what a rare occasion it was for me. I rare-ly go anywhere without my iPhone
so rarely am I truly lost. And guess what? We figured it out and got back to where we needed to be. It felt kind of good to have to figure it out on our own without relying on technology.
On spring break something real-ly strange happened: Johnny and I went for a run in shorts and t-shirts. In St. Petersburg, Fla. the tempera-tures sat in the 70s and we thought it was the perfect chance to get in our 18 mile run.
In St. Petersburg there is really only one main, long road so our route was essentially made for us: nine miles out and nine miles back.
We started early in the morning so the narrow sidewalk was empty for the most part and the air was cool. Within the first couple miles we passed over a bridge and spotted a trio of dolphins swimming below us: you sure don’t see that in Wisconsin.
However, as the run progressed the sidewalk began to fill with more and more snowbirds out for what I presume is their daily walk down the main drag.
Dodging in and out of the side-walk traffic the run at some points felt as though it was never going to end, but the good moments kept me going. Like when we ran our fastest yet 10K, fastest half marathon and fastest ever mile.-
One thing I didn’t leave behind in Wisconsin with my hat and mittens was my clumsiness. A crack jumped out at me somewhere near mile nine and I went down, I have the bruised knees to prove it.
Race day is now only five weeks away and my sore legs are wondering what the heck I’ve gotten myself into, but I truly can’t wait.
Copy Editor Courtney Kueppers logs her tri-umphs and tribulations of marathon training in
While other UW-Eau Claire stu-dents were enjoying spring break, the men’s and women’s swim and dive teams headed to nationals in Indi-anapolis to watch a select number of their teammates compete, two of which took home All-American titles.
Senior Alex Card tied for third place in the 200-meter breaststroke on the last day of the competition, and broke the school record he set last year with a time of 1:59:37.
On the third day of the competi-tion, Card took fifth in the prelimi-naries 100-meter breaststroke with a time of 55.50 seconds.
The 200-meter and 100-meter breaststroke marked two All-Ameri-can finishes for Card, bringing his col-lege career total up to six.
Overall, the men’s team finished in 27th out of 51 and women’s 28th.
Sophomore diver Sara Axness took home two oth-er All-American ti-tles after coming in tenth place on the 3-meter dive and fourth place on the 1-meter.
It had been three years since Axness said she had been on a competi-tive swim team and
this was her first time ever going to nationals. But she said she treated it like every other competition she’s been in.
“I know it sounds selfish, but you don’t look at what everybody’s doing because that can really get into your head,” she said. “You just have to re-ally focus on yourself and doing things the best that you can do them.”
On top of only having one year of training, Axness said her diving coach was not able to make it to nationals after a family emergency.
Thinking on their feet, Axness said she had her boyfriend text her diving coach during the meets to get advice. He signaled advice from her coach before each dive while in the stands.
“It worked out really well, consid-ering the circumstances,” Axness said. “Not an ideal way to go into a meet, but we definitely made it work and next year can only get better.”
Junior Allison Hable, who swims mostly sprint freestyle, also went to nationals and after swimming the first day of preliminaries took 18th place, qualifying her as an alternative for finals.
Hable said it was an honor for her just to qualify for nationals, and her goal this year was just to make it that far.
Even though she didn’t win any medals, she said she learned from the experience.
“It set me up a lot for next year,” she said. “My coaches have great ideas and expectations on what we can do next year to improve and go again.”
Art Brandt, who has been the head coach of the team for 11 years, said this will
be the last year he coaches the team, so he was glad to see them go to na-tionals one more time.
“The results were outstanding,” he said. “Four All-American performanc-es. Card in the two breast strokes and Sara in the one and three meter div-ing, and Ali Hable just missed.”
For him, he said this was more than just a competition but a way to leave behind the swimming family he has spent the last 11 years being a part of.
“It’s time for my family to come first,” he said. “Swimming family is pretty important, but I need to spend some more time with my wife.”
While that may be the case, Brandt said he will continue teaching in the special education department at Eau Claire, and plans to attend sev-eral of the home meets when he can.
Katy Macek COPY EDITOR
The men’s and women’s swim and dive teams compete at nationals over spring break
National meet is head coach’s last, team brings home two all-american titles
AWARD/ Men’s track and field finished in second place, women tied for 23rd placeteammates and not think-ing he’s better than anyone else and is a great team-mate,” Kilgallon said.
The recent success of the track and field pro-gram, led by Dennis, has brought the national spot light on to the university even further Kilgallon said.
And teammates have built off the success of Den-nis.
Blugold results
On the men’s side, five other individuals joined Dennis and the relay mem-bers as All-Americans.
Junior Brandon Zarnoth finished second in the heptathlon with a two-
day total of 5,259 points. Zarnoth also earned an-other recognition at the nationals banquet Friday night, as he was named the Midwest Region Field Ath-lete of the Year to make it an Eau Claire sweep of the award as Dennis won the region’s Track Athlete of the Year.
Fellow heptathlete Greg Peterson finished fifth in the event with 5,026 points.
Junior Roger Steen took home All-American honors for the second year in a row with a throw of 17.49 meters, and senior Matt Scott also brought home his second All-American honor in the mile as he finished
fourth with a time of 4 : 1 0 . 3 8 . Price also had an A l l -Amer -ican fin-ish in the 400-meter as he placed eighth.
On the women’s side, junior Car-ly Fehler made a record of her own by becoming the university’s all-time fast-est woman in the both the 60-meter dash and 200-me-ter dash. In the 200, she came in fourth-place for an All-American finish and time of 24.76 seconds, best-ing previous record holder
Jordanne Greenup’s time from two years ago. She ran a 7.77-second race in the 60, but did not reach finals.
The women’s 4x400-me-ter relay team joined the men as All-Americans, as a sixth-place finish from Brooke Patterson, Steph Rouse, Megan Mulligan and Jess Rupnow earned the quartet a podium spot.
The track teams will now get a month off before tackling the outdoor sea-son, which starts April 5 at UW-La Crosse.
CURRENTS10CURRENTS EDITOR: Zack Katz Thursday, March 27
In a typical day, how often do you use technology? A lot, right? How long do you think you could live without it? Could you resist it for a day? Even a few hours? How did we become so addicted?
For senior fine arts major Bet-sy Olaussen, questions like these inspired her current project. Her work focuses on how she sees the public’s relationship with tech-nology and how it consumes our identity.
“My work has revolved around the advancements of technology and how it is affecting our generation’s lives and how involved we are with the technological devices that we’re connected to everyday,” Olaussen said. “I have been really observ-ing people and how often they are involved with people face-to-face or how absorbed they are on their phones or tablets and whatnot.”
Olaussen said she first started thinking about this concept more than a year ago, and it sparked from a previous work – focusing on identity loss. After further research, she chose the focus of her project to convey this idea through a series of portraits that will be overlaid with
binary code.“All of the information we put
online and everything about us can be reduced down to ones and zeros,” Olaussen said. “The person that is going to be in the portraits, I am go-ing to use their actual information.
This is anything about them, like credit card numbers, social securi-ty numbers, their birthdate, where they are from, how old they are, ba-sically just numbers and words that are used to identify yourself.”
Olaussen said her series will feature six to seven portraits that will be printed on transparent pa-per. As the series goes on, the por-
trait of the person will slowly fade and the binary code will take over the image. Olaussen said this tran-sition represents how our involve-ment with technology consumes us.
“You are going to get different views of either the person or the code,” Olaussen said. “Or if you look through it, you can see it all at once. In the middle of the series is where you are going to see both the person and the code, which represents our existence.”
The series, Olaussen said, is for her senior show which she will in-stall in the Foster Art Gallery April 28. She said this has been her most ambitious project and the biggest struggle in completing was the de-cision-making process.
She said the process has in-volved a lot of experimentation in figuring out how she wants the viewer to see the work and how to evoke emotion from the viewer.
“The more we become more in-volved with technology, our physical being is like our identity,” she said. “It will slowly disappear and our identities will solely exist online.”
Danielle Pahl MULTIMEDIA EDITOR
DANIELLE PAHL / The Spectator X’S AND O’S: Senior Betsy Olaussen edits a picture for an art project she’s working on, which focuses on society’s dependency on technology.
Student incorporates technology into her art, series focuses on loss of identity
Crunching the numbers
“My work has re-
volved around the
advancements of tech-
nology and how it’s
affecting our genera-
tion’s lives ...”
BETSY OLAUSSENFine arts major
Eau Claire is filled with places to get away, and one of my favorite places is Lowes Creek Park. It is just a couple minutes outside of the city and the perfect place to go if you are looking for a couple of minutes by yourself.
Whether you want to hike some trails, sit on a rock by the river or take your dog (if you are lucky enough to have one) this is the place to be. As we all know, there is still a ton of snow on the ground so if you do decide to go, make sure to dress warmly and put on some waterproof hiking boots.
Or what I did a couple of weeks ago. Borrow a pair of snowshoes from someone. That way, if you don’t have anything other than TOMS or tennis shoes, you can still enjoy the trails and get good workout.
The unfortunate part is you have to pay for your car to be in the lot, but don’t worry, it’s only $3 for the day and totally worth it. That’s a coffee at Starbucks that you buy without even thinking about it, so ditch the over-priced coffee and head for the trails.
Better yet, pack a lunch and take a friend. I don’t know how many times I have gone out there with a backpack filled with extra pairs of gloves, a sandwich and water ready
to spend a couple of hours just wan-dering around. One of the best parts is it’s hardly ever crowded and if it is, it’s really easy to get away from other people.
The trails go deep enough into the woods where all you hear are birds and your own footsteps and let me tell you, after a rough week of classes and multiple jobs, this is ex-actly what you need.
Sometimes with parks, you don’t know what you are in for. Many times there are beer bottles thrown every-where and other garbage people have left behind, but not in this park.
There are also signs along the way that give you fitness challenges, like push-up bars. When the weath-er gets better, you can even moun-tain bike, which is really fun and a great way to see more of the 250 acres available to you.
I know we don’t want to think about more snow, but if there were, that would be the perfect time to head on out there. It gets so quiet, and the trees are covered with freshly fallen snow. It’s kind of like your own little paradise, and as we start think-ing about finals coming up in the next month or so, a little paradise is what we are going to need.
EMILY ALBRENT / The Spectator WHEN NATURE CALLS: For a small price, Lowes Creek Park provides a great escape from the daily grind. Bring a pair of water-proof boots for current conditions.
CURRENTS11CURRENTS EDITOR: Zack Katz Thursday, March 27
Spring break came, went and left Eau Claire with cold weather. Students in Wisconsin are used to this; most spring breaks rarely end on a warm note.
Chunks of darkened ice remain on boule-vards, and the streets are covered in cocktails of salt, sand and dirt. There’s a price to pay to live in a snowy state, and Mother Nature will do her thing to clean the city up as the temperatures rise. But in the meantime, what’s someone to do when cabin fever has hit an all-time high?
I looked into three facets of summertime fun to get an idea of how long the wait will be until activities can be enjoyed again.
Longboarding
Since the first flurries last fall, students that used longboards or skateboards as their pri-mary means of transportation adapted and found other ways of getting where they needed to go.
Pending random snowfalls, the time has come for riders to get back on their boards and roll their way around town.
The unavoidable reality is the cleanest streets to ride on are also the most heavily trafficked in the city. The quiet, safe streets are layered with sand and dirt and are unsuitable for inexperienced riders.
For the experienced riders, including those who carve and may have sliding gear, there are some hills that are ready for action.
In downtown, up on the hills near the Leader Telegram office; the Peace Lutheran Cemetery area provides excellent hills to bomb while the
rest of the city melts away. These hills along Doty Street do have sand and dirt on the road, but are still manageable.
Western Eau Claire has Mesa Ridge, a con-dominium development built on curving and winding hills that make for a nice longboarding trip. This area has some sand and dirt, but is rideable now.
Bicycling
Experienced riders should have no problems using bike trails along downtown Eau Claire now. Some portions of the trails may have some snow or ice, but nothing most bikes can’t handle.
But as the weather continues to shift into spring patterns, the bike trails will become wet and mucky as snow melts.
Those interested in using the paths near Owen Park, be aware that once the warm weath-er comes and snow melts rapidly, there is a risk of minor flooding on those trails.
Through the winter, bicyclists were using the roads to get around, and the option is now more serviceable than before. As mentioned in the longboarding section, the trafficked streets are cleaner than others, which makes riding a bike in the street simple.
But before hitting the streets, it’s important to know proper hand signals to let the surround-ing drivers know what the rider is doing.
Disc golf
Mt. Simon’s course, just outside the down-town area, is a hot spot for recreational disc golf-ers in the summer.
It’s located in the lower portion of Mt. Simon,
which is also home to two sand volleyball courts, two pavilions, which can be reserved through the city, and a boat landing connected to Dell’s pond.
The course has nine baskets and normally takes between 25 to 60 minutes to complete, de-pending on course occupancy.
Mt. Simon’s course is regarded by dgcourser-eview.com as excellent for beginners and a slight challenge for average players. Three of the holes are wooded with the other six including slight el-evation changes through sparsely wooded areas.
The course is covered in frozen snow but the tees are not, which ultimately makes this course playable. Until summer it may be best to skip
holes four and five.However, once the weather warms up, the
snow will melt and make the entire course mud-dy and unsuitable for casual play.
Northstar Middle School has a course, but it’s also covered with snow and has wooded holes which are recommended to skip until the sum-mer.
A brief scouting report on activities available around the city of Eau Claire
AUSTIN MAI / The Spectator CHUCKING PLASTIC: Conditions for disc golf are not ideal currently, but with spring weather around the corner, Eau Claire has some options if they want to get crafty in the meantime.
Last Friday, Left Wing Bourbon got down on the killing floor and let the good times roll at The Plus on South Barstow Street.
This polished example of a blues and funk band hails from the area, with four of the five members coming from Durand — most of the members have been playing togeth-er for more than five years.
Immediately into their set, Left Wing Bourbon burned through song after song with barely a pause, play-ing everything from blues standards to Marvin Gaye and James Brown covers.
Ashley Kosharek, in charge of booking the music for The Plus, said Left Wing Bourbon has played there
several times before. She said every
time there is an enthusiastic group of dancers, and the crowd, whether they came to watch or not, digs it.
“They’re one of the better blues bands we get,” Kosharek said.
The band consists of Faith Ul-welling on lead vocals, with her broth-er Jacob Ulwelling on bass. Tim Cas-well plays keyboards, Jacob Keisler on lead guitar and Derrick Biederman on percussion.
Everyone except the drummer sang background and lead at some point throughout the night, adding even more variety to Left Wing Bour-bon’s set.
The band also included Angie Coyle on tenor and alto saxophone, and guest singers and guitar play-ers joined the band for various songs throughout the show.
Band members mingled with the crowd on their breaks, greeting strangers and patrons as readily as friends and family that came specifi-cally to watch them play.
Amy Schmitz, who has been going to the band’s shows for several years, said they have a dedicated fan base in
the area.“People follow this band,” Schmitz
said. “Every show, everywhere they go.”
Schmitz said the band usually has a good response, and she agreed they were the best blues band performing around the Eau Claire area.
Faith Ulwelling said the band of-ficially formed in 2007 but they have been playing around since they were kids, and have had a lot of time to de-velop a tight show.
She said they try to play all dif-ferent types of blues and funk, so hav-ing a good crowd response and people dancing is usual for them.
“Wherever you go, whatever you go into, there’s always that base,” Ul-welling said.
The next Eau Claire show they have will be July 1 in Owen Park for the Tuesday Night Blues series.
Left Wing Bourbon puts on charismatic performance at Barstow Street venue
SUBMITTED SMOOTH LINE: Durand bluesters Left Wing Bourbon have performed in Eau Claire previous-ly, and will be in town again on July 1.
Glen OlsonSTAFF WRITER
OPINION / EDITORIAL13OP/ED EDITOR: Alex Zank Thursday, March 27
Last week was Sunshine Week. No, not your spring break in Mex-ico, this is a week devoted to open government.
It’s kind of an annual checkup. News organizations and watchdog groups released reports on Amer-ican government transparency. There were rallies and information campaigns; that kind of thing.
This year, Sunshine Week fell on March 16-22. So if you picked up a paper or browsed a news site, you likely read a story about how we fall short of full accountability in our country.
And Wisconsin, which boasts some of the weakest open govern-ment laws in the Midwest, also has a long way to go.
In each of our border states – Il-linois, Iowa, Minnesota and Michi-gan – either an open records or open meetings law violation is a misde-meanor, but in Wisconsin, neither are.
We don’t take open government seriously here. Thats a problem.
Our state’s top lawyer, Attor-ney General J.B. Van Hollen, hasn’t pursued an open government case in his seven-plus years in office, the Gannett Wisconsin Investigative Team reported March 14.
Instead, he defers those deci-sions to local District Attorney of-fices who are often understaffed or unfamiliar with open government laws.
That means local D.A. offices are charged with prosecuting open meetings and records violations alongside other crimes.
And I don’t envy prosecutors. Between 2011 and 2012, 30 percent of the state’s prosecutors and as-sistant prosecutors left their posts. That’s a pretty hefty turnover. Or just burnout.
Only five county D.A. offices in the state are fully staffed, according to another I-Team story published in April. Statewide D.A. offices are staffed at only 67 percent.
In 2003, a Fond du Lac man crashed his ’96 Firebird into a tree at 117 mph, slicing the car in half and killing 18-year-old passenger Benjamin Westerman of Kewas-kum.
Although investigators found the driver of the car drunk, the case sat untouched until a reporter re-minded Sheboygan County District Attorney Joe DeCecco five years later.
DeCecco said he got sidetracked with other cases; courts didn’t re-
solve the crime until 2010. Yep, he forgot.And still our top lawyer is
sloughing open government cases onto already swamped local attor-neys. Seems like he wants these cases to go away. Also seems like it’s working.
Wisconsin D.A.s haven’t issued a citation for a single open records violation, and have only written seven tickets for open meetings law breaches since 2009.
These laws are in place for a reason. If a lawmaker or records clerk doesn’t think anyone is paying attention, or the law won’t be en-forced, they might try to get away with more than they could in broad daylight.
And no, things aren’t better on a national level.
I don’t spend much time shaking a clenched fist at the screwballs in D.C. Not worth my windbags. But while I’m on the subject, Obama claimed his government would be the most transparent in history be-fore he took office.
To say he hasn’t lived up to that promise is an understatement:
• The Obama administration has prosecuted more whistleblowers (six) than all other administrations combined (three). Under the Espio-nage Act, a 97-year-old law, no less.
• The Center for Effective Gov-ernment issued failing grades to seven of the 15 federal agencies it reviewed in its annual report.
• Secrecy is trending upward. The Obama Squad censored or flat out refused to release more docu-ments last year than all previous years in the White House, according to an Associated Press report re-leased during Sunshine Week.
• Fifty of 101 federal agencies still haven’t updated regulations to comply with Freedom of Infor-mation Act amendments passed by congress seven years ago.
And so on.You have a right to this infor-
mation. You shouldn’t need a desk in a government office to get the full picture. I know it seems daunting to slog through red tape to find out what’s happening. Hang in there.
Let’s open the blinds already.
Sunshine week highlights government secrecy
Recent reports tracking government accountability show alarming trends
Nate Beck CHIEF COPY EDITOR
Beck is a senior journalism major and Chief Copy Editor of The Spectator. He can be reached at [email protected] or @NateBeck9.
SUBMITTED PHOTOS BIPARTISAN UNACCOUNTABILITY: President Barack Obama’s administration has prosecut-ed more whistleblowers than all other administrations combined. Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has not pursued a single open case.
“ ... Some reviewers relate the app to an ad-dictive game. It is very
easy to forget about the person you were
talking to yesterday.”
Right before spring break a close friend of mine rushed up to me all excited that she met a guy. Instant-ly I was happy for her, and as girls do, I asked her all about him and how she met him.
Then she said she had not officially met him yet, but he had been her match on Tinder, a pop-ular “dating” app. Although I was happy for her, I was skeptical.
I have never been one for online dating. I have heard the facts and results about sites like eHarmo-ny and Match.com. But I remained unconvinced even though I have a cousin who met her husband online. Four kids and nine years later, they are still happy as can be.
Most college students do not have an online dating profile. How-ever, Tinder has been gaining pop-ularity, especially around college
campuses like UW-Eau Claire.If you haven’t tried the app it
is pretty simple to understand, it is similar to “Hot or Not.”
A person’s picture pops up on your screen, if you like what you see, swipe right, if you don’t like what you see, swipe left. If you swipe right and the other person swipes right, then you have a match.
The beauty of Tinder is how simple it is. It matches you based on your GPS location and links up to your Facebook so you are able to see mutual friends and common in-terests.
Countless friends of mine have tried the app, and a few have ac-tually met dates or relationships through it. I was still skeptical, but I was seeing more of the positive side.
While I may not like the app or the idea of online dating, others can list many benefits. It’s the same
way of talking to someone at a club or party. If you like them at first glance, chances are you will talk to them. Other peo-ple cannot see if you ‘like’ them if they do not like you. So in the long run it is not an embarrassing app.
Also you are only able to contact someone if it is a match, so you do not get bombarded with different messages.
Where there are pros, there are also cons. First of all, not everyone on the app is looking for relation-ships. For some users, Tinder is just a shortcut for sex. Also, some reviews relate the app to an addic-tive game. It is very easy to forget about the person you were talking to yesterday.
In the long run it comes down to personal choice. I will admit after seeing so many of my friends hav-ing success from the site in recent weeks, I am less skeptical about the app. Seeing their exposure with Tin-der was a first-hand learning experi-ence, but not everyone on the app is there for a quick laugh.
If it doesn’t work out with one person, just wait a short time. Chances are your next match will pop up shortly.
Courtney Roszak STAFF WRITER
Roszak is a freshman journalism ma-jor and staff writer for The Spectator. She can be reached at [email protected] or @CRoszak32.
Swipe right to likeApp is changing how college
students meet socially
GRAPHIC BY KARL ENGHOFER
OPINION / EDITORIAL14OP/ED EDITOR: Alex Zank Thursday, March 27
The NFL playing season has been over since the Seattle Seahawks dis-mantled Peyton Manning and the Den-ver Broncos in the Super Bowl, but the NFL never sleeps. The offseason has been alive and well as fans argue over which players their favorite teams let go and which ones they signed through free agency.
A common subject discussed in NFL fandom circles is the way to build a team. More specifically, which way is the right way.
Since the Seahawks just won the franchise’s first league championship with a roster of low risk, high reward players, it’s thought by many that hav-ing great depth is how a team can win a Super Bowl.
The Seahawks have starting play-ers on their team that were drafted anywhere from the first round to the sixth round, which says a lot about their scouting department. When teams can accurately scout players, de-termine their ability and make steals in the lower rounds of the draft, teams succeed.
The success may not come from wins right away, but it will be notice-able economically.
When players are drafted in the higher rounds, they earn more money from the start. The lower a player is se-lected, the less money they’ll receive in base salary.
The less money a business must pay their employees, the more money it can make or keep.
But the Seahawks were lucky their drafted players panned out, developed and played at such an elite level that it carried them to the big game.
While there is merit to that theory of managing, I’ve always thought about the ridiculous amounts of money the
elite veterans make in the NFL.Aaron Rodgers, former league
Most Valuable Player and Super Bowl Champion for the Green Bay Packers, knows how to sling the ball.
He also knows he’s one of the best quarterbacks, if not the best, in the league right now and that his level of play deserves high pay.
But what if a general manager ex-panded the theory of having players for cheap from the draft and could inspire the team to take less pay for a higher shot at championships?
When I was taught what football was, the message was to win. You play to win football games, to make the play-offs, to win the big one. And according to NFL players, nothing is better than winning it all.
If that is the ultimate goal, why do players continue to hold out of training camps, and fight the management to get as much money as possible?
I understand most professionals worked hard their entire lives to get where they are, and that deserves cred-
it. But the current system allows great players to hold some teams back and force teams to only find deals through the draft.
This upcoming season, the salary cap is set for $133 million. This means all 53 players on the active roster sal-ary must be under the cap. At first this sounds great because $133 million is more money than most people can imagine. But once elite players take a large chunk of the cap, it becomes more difficult to fill a team with play-makers.
Aaron Rodgers' projected cap ac-cording to spotrac.com is $17.5 million, which leaves an average of $2.2 million per player to fill the roster. Despite his great skill, I doubt 52 men would take lower pay just so the team could secure a prominent passer.
Austin Mai STAFF WRITER
Pro football offseason shows two different philosophies in building competitive teams for next season
Big talent, big money, big problems
“ ... the current sys-tem allows great
players to hold some teams back and force
teams to only find deals through the
draft.”
>> BIG MONEY page 15
So my suggestion is that to change how teams develop, the elite players need to step up and promote the idea of becoming a dynasty over becoming rich. Truth is, they’re all rich, even the undrafted free agents after the draft have more money than peers that don’t play profes-sional sports.
This starts with changing the culture in the locker room, because if the players believed that taking pay cuts and bringing in talent at low
costs to create an experienced, tal-ented team would help them achieve the childhood dreams of champion-ships, I’d hope they would consider it.
It’s not like the experts or the fans need the major salary cap hits to know who is good and who isn’t.
OPINION / EDITORIAL15OP / ED EDITOR: Alex Zank Thursday, March 27
Mai is a sophomore journalism major and staff writer for The Spectator. He can be reached [email protected] or @austinisfresh.
BIG MONEY/ Star players should focus on their team
Sometimes the most controversial top-ics involve how late we should be allowed to sleep in. The battle over teenage slumber, in particular, has been a public policy battle nearly 20 years in the making.
A recent New York Times article reported the movement to push back high school start times, which advocates claim would be more in line with teens’ bio-logical sleep schedules, has gained momen-tum. Dozens of school districts across the country have pointed to growing research on the topic and delayed school start times in the interest of student health.
The idea of start-ing schools later even
scored an endorsement from Arne Duncan, sec-retary of education, last summer via Twitter.
Opponents claim starting school times later will have other consequences, poten-tially affecting student jobs or cutting into time usually slated for homework and extra-curriculars.
The pros and cons of both sides are obvi-ous. Some places that employ students don’t close until 11 p.m. or later, resulting in late nights for teens. Other places close much earli-er, such as 7 or 8 p.m., and later school hours affect students’ avail-ability. The Editorial Board has experiences with both cases.
It’s important to let teens, at an important
stage of development, to get adequate sleep. At the same time, gen-erations of students have been dealing with school starting times in the early morning and have survived.
Another thing to point out is the basis for making such a decision. For schools, academ-ics should come first. Sports or other extra-curriculars shouldn’t be the determining factor for school districts in making these decisions.
In the end, the Ed-itorial Board was split on the decision. The question posed was: “Is it a good idea to start high school at a later time?”
Yes: threeNo: four
Ed Board: school start time pros, cons weighedUW-Eau Claire has named a search committee that
will select who will become the next chancellor
GRAPHIC BY ALEX ZANK/ The Spectator
Shedding regulatory light on shady for-profit universitiesAlex Zank OP/ED EDITOR
A piece of consumer advice: if you see a product advertised on day-time television promising miracles you probably shouldn’t believe the ad’s claims, nor should you buy the product.
The same rule applies if you are in the market for education. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve seen ads for establishments like University of Phoenix or Uni-versal Technical Institute in between reruns of “Sein-feld.”
The problem with these colleges, though, runs a bit deeper than claims made by companies selling miracle vi-tamins. Oftentimes people who attend these colleges end up with massive amounts of debt coupled with little in the way of job prospects.
This isn’t to say all for-profit col-leges are inherently evil. A column in the New York Times by Brent Staples puts it best: “Honest, well-run for-prof-it colleges can be helpful to students who do not qualify for traditional schools,” he explains.
The others however, which he re-fers to as the “robber baron” colleges, “saddle students with crushing debt while furnishing them with useless de-grees — or no degrees at all.”
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions re-leased a report in the summer of 2012 that revealed alarming figures about for-profit universities.
The Department of Education, cit-ed in a recent Politico article, claimed students at for-profit colleges make up 13 percent of the total higher education population and nearly half of all loan defaults.
The taxpayers are also involved when federal loans and grants are giv-en to these students that fall prey to these colleges.
For instance, taxpayers are in-vesting more than $30 billion a year into companies that operate for-profit colleges. Among the 15 publicly trad-ed for-profit colleges, the report ex-plained, this investment accounted for
86 percent of their revenues.
For students who enrolled in these schools in 2008-09, more than half with-drew by mid-2010, according to the HELP com-mittee report.
Sen. and Chairman of the HELP commit-tee Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said in a
statement on the committee’s website “these practices are not the exception — they are the norm; they are systemic throughout the industry.”
The only way I’m able to attend col-lege is because the existence of federal loans. My education is funded heavily through Perkins loans along with a col-lection of other grants and loans.
I’m not ashamed to admit this because I view these loans as a soci-ety-funded investment in its future. When I graduate in May, I’m going to hopefully find a decent-paying job (by journalism standards) because I have the appropriate training. Not only will I be paying off these loans with this revenue, but I’m also going to be a pro-ductive member of society as are the intentions of college attendees.
The logic isn’t too complicated here: both students and society are better off as a result, so federal grants and loans are a worthy investment to make.
But what about students who don’t make it through college or can’t find a job as the result of a for-profit college’s predatory practices?
“They can’t find a job. They de-fault. The taxpayer ends up holding the bag. Their credit is ruined, and the for-profit institution is making out like a bandit. That’s a problem,” President Barack Obama said in August.
Providing educational opportuni-ty to students is very important, and that’s what these for-profit colleges, when functioning properly, can do. But if these institutions are acting more like payday lenders than actual col-leges, something needs to be fixed. So-ciety has a direct interest in ensuring these fixes are made.
SUBMITTED EDUCATING THE PUBLIC: Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) in his capacity as chair of the Senate HELP Committee has expressed concerns with for-profit colleges that prey on students.
Zank is a senior journalism and po-litical science double major and Op/Ed Editor of The Spectator. He can be reached at [email protected] or @AlexZank.
“If these (for-profit schools) are acting more like payday
lenders than actual colleges, something needs to be fixed.”
Among the college students who headed for warmer weather in the sun-shine state was a group of 18 UW-Eau Claire students.
But these students were looking for more adventure than the average beach bum.
The Environmental Adventure Center annually offers students an alternate way to spend their spring break; this year it meant driving to Florida to explore state parks under the direction of three student trip leaders: Allie Lenzmeier, Dave Simenson, and Sam Worple,
“Sure I’ll take a day on the beach, that’s fine, but we are out looking for an adventure and you’re not going to get that laying down on a blanket,” Simen-son said.
Becoming leaders
To become a student trip leader an expressed interest in the outdoors and involvement in the EAC is necessary, Worple said.
Worple, a senior business major, has worked as a trip leader since his sophomore year, but this was his first spring break trip. His outdoor expertise are snowboarding and backpacking, he said.
“I’ve always loved nature. Through-out my whole college career I’ve never really done the typical college scene,” Worple said. “This is in my blood, I don’t know any other way to spend a spring break other than in a tent”
Lenzmeier, a freshman, was also a rookie to EAC spring break trips; this was the first trip she led. She said the planning process united the trio of lead-ers.
“We ended up having great chem-istry. Our leadership styles were all very similar so it ended up being great,” Lenzmeier said.
Simenson served as the veteran EAC spring breaker among the leaders. The junior geography major has spent his previous two spring breaks leading trips to Moab, Utah. He became com-
fortable planning for the trips to Utah so this year provided a new set of chal-lenges for him, he said.
The EAC hasn’t taken a group to Florida in more than five years which made planning logistics difficult, Si-menson said.
Logistics are Simenson’s strong suit though, Lenzmeier said.
“(Simenson) was very good at logistics and planning while (Wor-ple) was very good at lifting peo-ple’s spirits,” Lenzmeier said. “All of us together we kind of covered all the bases as far as having a well round-ed leadership style.”
Planning
Before leaving town in two univer-sity suburbans and one rented Toyo-ta, extensive planning had to be done. Planning is among the leader’s top re-sponsibilities, Worple said.
“First and foremost our respon-sibility is making sure everyone gets from point A to point B and they make it safely. That’s number one,” Worple said. “Other than that we plan the en-tire trip weeks before hand.”
The team was responsible for plan-ning the route, staying on budget and planning for meals.
To plan the route, Simenson said he consulted a former student trip lead-er who had gone on a similar trip to Florida.
“He gave us some good options and suggested the Suwannee River which was our starting point,” Simenson said.
The plan for the nine-day excursion was to spend four days canoeing the central region of the Suwannee River, which flows out of Georgia and eventual-ly winds up in the coast. Afterward, the leader’s itinerary had the group moving on to a variety of state parks.
However, when a thunderstorm moved in on day two of canoeing the river, plans had to be adjusted, Worple said.
“The river was rising like a foot an hour and with having inexperienced paddlers we didn’t think it was very safe for them to be on a river that was already high with a lot of debris,” Worple
said. “So we called our outfitters, got pulled out and we headed down to a different state for-est in Florida.”
Freshman Em-ily Larranaga said the leaders were good at acting on their feet when the rain hit.
“The leaders were great. They rearranged every-thing and figured it out together,” Lar-ranaga said. “We just all tried to go with the flow.”
Worple said he was disappoint-ed that the group didn’t get to spend a full four days on the river because it was the portion of the trip that offered true wilderness camping to the par-ticipants.
Instead the group had to resort to car camping, which is consid-ered to be an easier way to camp and in some ways defeats the purpose of student trip leaders, Wor-ple said.
“The trips we provide are supposed to be more of a wilderness immersion whereas car camping is more of going and hanging out with friends which was fine, but anyone can go out and car camp you don’t need us for that,” Worple said.
The rain threw a wrench in the planning; another obstacle the leaders faced was the size of the group they were leading.
Playing peacekeepers
Traditionally, the annual spring break trips offered by the EAC bring nine students and two or three student
trip leaders. This year, 15 participants went on the trip with leaders. The larg-er group size provided many difficulties, Lenzmeier said.
“When you have a group that big some people aren’t going to get along, some people are kind of going to go their own direction,” Lenzmeier said.
Worple said a key aspect of EAC trips is forming relationships between the leaders and the partici-pants, which was difficult to achieve in the large group.
“Keeping everyone happy was tough,” Worple said. “It was also very hard for the three trip leaders to become friends with everyone, be-cause that’s what we try to do on our trips, but with 15 people it’s really hard to do that.”
Larranaga said all three leaders had goofy, outgoing personalities that made the trip fun for her.
While most participants re-mained positive and enjoyed their trip exploring nature some did not, Worple said. When situations of con-
flict arose the leaders simply took the reigns, Lenzmeier said.
“As the leadership when things didn’t go according to plan we took it into our own hands, because they agreed to an itinerary that we made so we ended up making all the deci-sions in the end,” she said.
Simenson said the trip taught him a lesson in group dynamics and even though there were difficulties at times, there is no other way he would have wanted to spend his spring break, he said.
“There’s really more to gain that just being out in nature. It’s the camaraderie you build with oth-er people,” Simenson said. “It’s sec-ond to none when you’re out there in the sticks. One of my favorite parts of leading these trips is you see the best and worst of people when you’re out in the woods, but mostly the best.”
WORPLE
STUDENT LIFE16STUDENT LIFE EDITOR: Courtney Kueppers Thursday, March 27
Courtney Kueppers COPY EDITOR
Three UW-Eau Claire students led their peers on an adventurous spring break
SUBMITTEDALWAYS ADVENTURING: Senior Sam Worple, freshman Allie Lenzmeier and junior Dave Simenson snorkeling at in Crystal River, Fla. The three served as student trip leaders on a spring break trip put on by the Environmental Adventure Center.
